The Mack Reynolds Megapack Read online

  Metaxa came to his feet. He scowled at Ronny Bronston and growled, “Unfortunately, the human race can’t take the time out for happiness. Come along, I want to show you something.”

  He swung around the corner of his desk and made his way toward a ceiling-high bookcase.

  Ronny stared after him, taken off guard, but Sid Jakes was grinning his amusement.

  Ross Metaxa pushed a concealed button and the bookcase slid away to one side to reveal an elevator beyond.

  “Come along,” Metaxa repeated over his shoulder. He entered the elevator, followed by Jakes.

  There was nothing else to do. Ronny Bronston followed them, his face still flushed with the angered argument.

  The elevator dropped, how far, Ronny had no idea. It stopped and they emerged into a plain, sparsely furnished vault. Against one wall was a boxlike affair that reminded Ronny of nothing so much as a deep-freeze.

  For all practical purposes, that’s what it was. Ross Metaxa led him over and they stared down into its glass-covered interior.

  Ronny’s eyes bugged. The box contained the partly charred body of an animal approximately the size of a rabbit. No, not an animal. It had obviously once been clothed, and its limbs were obviously those of a tool using life form.

  Metaxa and Jakes were staring down at it solemnly, for once no inane grin on the supervisor’s face. And that of Ross Metaxa was more weary than ever.

  Ronny said finally, “What is it?” But he knew.

  “You tell us,” Metaxa growled sourly.

  “It’s an intelligent life form,” Ronny blurted. “Why has it been kept secret?”

  “Let’s go on back upstairs,” Metaxa sighed.

  Back in his office he said, “Now I go into my speech. Shut up for a while.” He poured himself a drink, not offering one to the other two. “Ronny,” he said, “man isn’t alone in the galaxy. There’s other intelligent life. Dangerously intelligent.”

  In spite of himself Ronny reacted in amusement. “That little creature down there? The size of a small monkey?” As soon as he said it, he realized the ridiculousness of his statement.

  Metaxa grunted. “Obviously, size means nothing. That little fellow down there was picked up by one of our Space Forces scouts over a century ago. How long he’d been drifting through space, we don’t know. Possibly only months, but possibly hundreds of centuries. But however long he’s proof that man is not alone in the galaxy. And we have no way of knowing when the expanding human race will come up against this other intelligence—and whoever it was fighting.”

  * * * *

  “But,” Ronny protested, “you’re assuming they’re aggressive. Perhaps coming in contact with these aliens will be the best thing that ever happened to man. Possibly that little fellow down there is the most benevolent creature ever evolved.”

  Metaxa looked at him strangely. “Let’s hope so,” he said. “However, when found he was in what must have been a one-man scout. He was dead and his craft was blasted and torn—obviously from some sort of weapons’ fire. His scout was obviously a military craft, highly equipped with what could only be weapons, most of them so damaged our engineers haven’t been able to figure them out. To the extent they have been able to reconstruct them, they’re scared silly. No, there’s no two ways about it, our little rabbit sized intelligence down in the vault was killed in an interplanetary conflict. And sooner or later, Ronny, man in his explosion into the stars is going to run into either or both of the opponents in that conflict.”

  Ronny Bronston slumped back into his chair, his brain running out a dozen leads at once.

  Metaxa and Jakes remained quiet, looking at him speculatively.

  Ronny said slowly, “Then the purpose of Section G is to push the member planets of UP along the fastest path of progress, to get them ready for the eventual, inevitable meeting.”

  “Not just Section G,” Metaxa growled, “but all of the United Planets organization, although most of the rank and file don’t even know our basic purpose. Section G? We do the dirty work, and are proud to do it, by every method we can devise.”

  Ronny leaned forward. “But look,” he said. “Why not simply inform all member planets of this common danger? They’d all unite in the effort to meet the common potential foe. Anything standing in the way would be brushed aside.”

  Metaxa shook his head wearily. “Would they? Is a common danger enough for man to change his institutions, particularly those pertaining to property, power and religion? History doesn’t show it. Delve back into early times and you’ll recall, for an example, that in man’s early discovery of nuclear weapons he almost destroyed himself. Three or four different socio-economic systems co-existed at that time and all would have preferred destruction rather than changes in their social forms.”

  Jakes said, in an unwonted quiet tone, “No, until someone comes up with a better answer it looks as though Section G is going to have to continue the job of advancing man’s institutions, in spite of himself.”

  The commissioner made it clearer. “It’s not as though we deal with all our member planets. It isn’t necessary. But you see, Ronny, the best colonists are usually made up of the, well, crackpot element. Those who are satisfied, stay at home. America, for instance, was settled by the adventurers, the malcontents, the non-conformists, the religious cultists, and even fugitives and criminals of Europe. So it is in the stars. A group of colonists go out with their dreams, their schemes, their far-out ideas. In a few centuries they’ve populated their new planet, and often do very well indeed. But often not and a nudge, a push, from Section G can start them up another rung or so of the ladder of social evolution. Most of them don’t want the push. Few cultures, if any, realize they are mortal; like Hitler’s Reich, they expect to last at least a thousand years. They resist any change—even change for the better.”

  Ronny’s defenses were crumbling, but he threw one last punch. “How do you know the changes you make are for the better?”

  Metaxa shrugged heavy shoulders. “It’s sometimes difficult to decide, but we aim for changes that will mean an increased scientific progress, a more advanced industrial technology, more and better education, the opening of opportunity for every member of the culture to exert himself to the full of his abilities. The last is particularly important. Too many cultures, even those that think of themselves as particularly advanced, suppress the individual by one means or another.”

  Ronny was still mentally reeling with the magnitude of it all. “But how can you account for the fact that these alien intelligences haven’t already come in contact with us?”

  Metaxa shrugged again. “The Solar System, our sun, is way out in a sparsely populated spiral arm of our galaxy. Undoubtedly, these others are further in toward the center. We have no way of knowing how far away they are, or how many sun systems they dominate, or even how many other empires of intelligent life forms there are. All we know is that there are other intelligences in the galaxy, that they are near enough like us to live on the same type planets. The more opportunity man has to develop before the initial contact takes place, the stronger bargaining position, or military position, as the case may be, he’ll be in.”

  Sid Jakes summed up the Tommy Paine business for Ronny’s sake. “We need capable agents badly, but we need dedicated and efficient ones. We can’t afford anything less. So when we come upon potential Section G operatives we send them out with a trusted Tog to get a picture of these United Planets of ours. It’s the quickest method of indoctrination we’ve hit upon; the agent literally teaches himself by observation and participation. Usually, it takes four or five stops, on this planet and that, before the probationary agent begins sympathizing with the efforts of this elusive Tommy Paine. Especially since every Section G agent he runs into, including the Tog, of course, fills him full of stories of Tommy Paine’s activities.

  “You were one of the quickest to stumble on the true nature of our Section G. After calling at only three planets you saw that we ourselves are T
ommy Paine.”

  “But…but what’s the end?” Ronny said plaintively. “You say our job is advancing man, even in spite of himself when it comes to that. We start at the bottom of the evolutionary ladder in a condition of savagery, clan communism in government, simple animism in religion, and slowly we progress through barbarism to civilization, through paganism to the higher ethical codes, through chattel slavery and then feudalism and beyond. What is the final end, the Ultima Thule?”

  Metaxa was shaking his head again. He poured himself another drink, offered the bottle this time to the others. “We don’t know,” he said wearily, “perhaps there is none. Perhaps there is always another rung on this evolutionary ladder.” He punched at his order box and said, “Irene, have them do up a silver badge for Ronny.”

  Ronny Bronston took a deep breath and reached for the brown bottle. “Well,” he said. “I suppose I’m ready to ask for my first assignment.” He thought for a moment. “By the way, if there’s any way to swing it, I wouldn’t mind working with Supervisor Lee Chang Chu.”

  GUN FOR HIRE

  Joe Prantera called softly, “Al.” The pleasurable, comfortable, warm feeling began spreading over him, the way it always did.

  The older man stopped and squinted, but not suspiciously, even now.

  The evening was dark, it was unlikely that the other even saw the circle of steel that was the mouth of the shotgun barrel, now resting on the car’s window ledge.

  “Who’s it?” he growled.

  Joe Prantera said softly, “Big Louis sent me, Al.”

  And he pressed the trigger.

  And at that moment, the universe caved inward upon Joseph Marie Prantera.

  There was nausea and nausea upon nausea.

  There was a falling through all space and through all time. There was doubling and twisting and twitching of every muscle and nerve.

  There was pain, horror and tumultuous fear.

  And he came out of it as quickly and completely as he’d gone in.

  He was in, he thought, a hospital and his first reaction was to think, This here California. Everything different. Then his second thought was Something went wrong. Big Louis, he ain’t going to like this.

  He brought his thinking to the present. So far as he could remember, he hadn’t completely pulled the trigger. That at least meant that whatever the rap was it wouldn’t be too tough. With luck, the syndicate would get him off with a couple of years at Quentin.

  A door slid open in the wall in a way that Joe had never seen a door operate before. This here California.

  The clothes on the newcomer were wrong, too. For the first time, Joe Prantera began to sense an alienness—a something that was awfully wrong.

  The other spoke precisely and slowly, the way a highly educated man speaks a language which he reads and writes fluently but has little occasion to practice vocally. “You have recovered?”

  Joe Prantera looked at the other expressionlessly. Maybe the old duck was one of these foreign doctors, like.

  The newcomer said, “You have undoubtedly been through a most harrowing experience. If you have any untoward symptoms, possibly I could be of assistance.”

  Joe couldn’t figure out how he stood. For one thing, there should have been some kind of police guard.

  The other said, “Perhaps a bit of stimulant?”

  Joe said flatly, “I wanta lawyer.”

  The newcomer frowned at him. “A lawyer?”

  “I’m not sayin’ nothin’. Not until I get a mouthpiece.”

  The newcomer started off on another tack. “My name is Lawrence Reston-Farrell. If I am not mistaken, you are Joseph Salviati-Prantera.”

  Salviati happened to be Joe’s mother’s maiden name. But it was unlikely this character could have known that. Joe had been born in Naples and his mother had died in childbirth. His father hadn’t brought him to the States until the age of five and by that time he had a stepmother.

  “I wanta mouthpiece,” Joe said flatly, “or let me outta here.”

  Lawrence Reston-Farrell said, “You are not being constrained. There are clothes for you in the closet there.”

  Joe gingerly tried swinging his feet to the floor and sitting up, while the other stood watching him, strangely. He came to his feet. With the exception of a faint nausea, which brought back memories of that extreme condition he’d suffered during…during what? He hadn’t the vaguest idea of what had happened.

  He was dressed in a hospital-type nightgown. He looked down at it and snorted and made his way over to the closet. It opened on his approach, the door sliding back into the wall in much the same manner as the room’s door had opened for Reston-Farrell.

  Joe Prantera scowled and said, “These ain’t my clothes.”

  “No, I am afraid not.”

  “You think I’d be seen dead wearing this stuff? What is this, some religious crackpot hospital?”

  Reston-Farrell said, “I am afraid, Mr. Salviati-Prantera, that these are the only garments available. I suggest you look out the window there.”

  Joe gave him a long, chill look and then stepped to the window. He couldn’t figure the other. Unless he was a fruitcake. Maybe he was in some kind of pressure cooker and this was one of the fruitcakes.

  He looked out, however, not on the lawns and walks of a sanitarium but upon a wide boulevard of what was obviously a populous city.

  And for a moment again, Joe Prantera felt the depths of nausea.

  This was not his world.

  He stared for a long, long moment. The cars didn’t even have wheels, he noted dully. He turned slowly and faced the older man.

  Reston-Farrell said compassionately, “Try this, it’s excellent cognac.”

  Joe Prantera stared at him, said finally, flatly, “What’s it all about?”

  The other put down the unaccepted glass. “We were afraid first realization would be a shock to you,” he said. “My colleague is in the adjoining room. We will be glad to explain to you if you will join us there.”

  “I wanta get out of here,” Joe said.

  “Where would you go?”

  The fear of police, of Al Rossi’s vengeance, of the measures that might be taken by Big Louis on his failure, were now far away.

  Reston-Farrell had approached the door by which he had entered and it reopened for him. He went through it without looking back.

  There was nothing else to do. Joe dressed, then followed him.

  * * * *

  In the adjoining room was a circular table that would have accommodated a dozen persons. Two were seated there now, papers, books and soiled coffee cups before them. There had evidently been a long wait.

  Reston-Farrell, the one Joe had already met, was tall and drawn of face and with a chainsmoker’s nervousness. The other was heavier and more at ease. They were both, Joe estimated, somewhere in their middle fifties. They both looked like docs. He wondered, all over again, if this was some kind of pressure cooker.

  But that didn’t explain the view from the window.

  Reston-Farrell said, “May I present my colleague, Citizen Warren Brett-James? Warren, this is our guest from…from yesteryear, Mr. Joseph Salviati-Prantera.”

  Brett-James nodded to him, friendly, so far as Joe could see. He said gently, “I think it would be Mr. Joseph Prantera, wouldn’t it? The maternal linage was almost universally ignored.” His voice too gave the impression he was speaking a language not usually on his tongue.

  Joe took an empty chair, hardly bothering to note its alien qualities. His body seemed to fit into the piece of furniture, as though it had been molded to his order.

  Joe said, “I think maybe I’ll take that there drink, Doc.”

  Reston-Farrell said, “Of course,” and then something else Joe didn’t get. Whatever the something else was, a slot opened in the middle of the table and a glass, so clear of texture as to be all but invisible, was elevated. It contained possibly three ounces of golden fluid.

  Joe didn’t allow himself t
o think of its means of delivery. He took up the drink and bolted it. He put the glass down and said carefully, “What’s it all about, huh?”

  Warren Brett-James said soothingly, “Prepare yourself for somewhat of a shock, Mr. Prantera. You are no longer in Los Angeles—”

  “Ya think I’m stupid? I can see that.”

  “I was about to say, Los Angeles of 1960. Mr. Prantera, we welcome you to Nuevo Los Angeles.”

  “Ta where?”

  “To Nuevo Los Angeles and to the year—” Brett-James looked at his companion. “What is the date, Old Calendar?”

  “2133,” Reston-Farrell said. “2133 A.D. they would say.”

  Joe Prantera looked from one of them to the other, scowling. “What are you guys talking about?”

  Warren Brett-James said softly, “Mr. Prantera, you are no longer in the year 1960, you are now in the year 2133.”

  He said, uncomprehendingly, “You mean I been, like, unconscious for—” He let the sentence fall away as he realized the impossibility.

  Brett-James said gently, “Hardly for one hundred and seventy years, Mr. Prantera.”

  Reston-Farrell said, “I am afraid we are confusing you. Briefly, we have transported you, I suppose one might say, from your own era to ours.”

  Joe Prantera had never been exposed to the concept of time travel. He had simply never associated with anyone who had ever even remotely considered such an idea. Now he said, “You mean, like, I been asleep all that time?”

  “Not exactly,” Brett-James said, frowning.

  Reston-Farrell said, “Suffice to say, you are now one hundred and seventy-three years after the last memory you have.”

  Joe Prantera’s mind suddenly reverted to those last memories and his eyes narrowed dangerously. He felt suddenly at bay. He said, “Maybe you guys better let me in on what’s this all about.”

  Reston-Farrell said, “Mr. Prantera, we have brought you from your era to perform a task for us.”

  Joe stared at him, and then at the other. He couldn’t believe he was getting through to them. Or, at least, that they were to him.